Charity Herrman took a 21-day break from her Facebook account along with about 1,000 members of her church. / Screen shot

Leah Becerra/News-Leader

It’s on your phone, computer and tablet, and people seem to be checking it all of the time.

Facebook is the most dominant among social network sites, but a new report suggests you might see fewer friends online — at least temporarily.

The Pew Research Center found last month that 67 percent of Americans are on Facebook. Of those on the site, however, 61 percent say they have taken a voluntary break of several weeks or more.

Last month, about 1,000 members of Hope Community Church in Springfield did just that.

Pastors asked church attendees to unplug from all non-work-related media for 21 days to spend that time with God, family and friends.

“In the past few years it seems people are together in a room, but they’re not having real conversations,” said Charity Herrmann, administrative pastor at Hope Church.

This is the third year the church has held a media fast and has received positive responses from church attendees. “It’s a really good way to clear yourself,” she said.

Herrmann said the media fast gave her more time for conversation with her husband, Michael, and more quality time with her 8-month-old daughter, Elodie.

“I didn’t realize how much I was checking Facebook and Twitter,” she said. “It made everything get quiet for a while.”

Many reasons for taking break

Facebook users surveyed by the Pew Research Center cited many reasons for taking a break from the site.

“The main reason people gave for taking a break from Facebook was that they were simply too busy with the other demands of their lives,” Aaron Smith, senior researcher and one of the report’s authors, wrote in an email interview. This reason accounted for 21 percent of users.

Other cited reasons included loss of interest, waste of time, too much drama and too much time spent on the site.

Smith said it was the first time these data were compiled by the Pew Research Center, but he feels confident that taking breaks from social media will continue in the future.

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Smith’s research also found that 27 percent of people said they plan to maintain the same amount of Facebook usage this year, while 3 percent said they plan to decrease the amount of time they spend on the site. Of those who are not on Facebook, 20 percent say they once were but have since dropped it.

Some comments by those surveyed who took breaks from Facebook include: “I was tired of stupid comments.” “I took a break when it got boring.” “It was not getting me anywhere.” “Too much drama.” “I gave it up for Lent.” “I was fasting,” and “It caused problems in my (romantic) relationship.”

Although strained relationships was not listed as a survey category, many of the reasons people quit involve lost time, including time with others.

Relationship check

Monika Strachocka-Kile, a licensed clinical social worker at Mercy Hospital, said she thinks Facebook puts tension on personal relationships.

“It does interfere with daily relationships in our households and in our lives,” she said. “I am often told, for example, that there is a fight at the dinner table because they won’t stop looking at their phone.”

Strachocka-Kile said Facebook and other social media can become an addiction, which she would compare to emotional eating.

She said people who are isolated and lack face-to-face intimacy are often susceptible to Facebook addiction.

“As someone who works with interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships, I am always concerned about the level of pseudo intimacy as opposed to genuine intimacy,” she said.

Taking periodic breaks from social media sites like Facebook is healthy, said Strachocka-Kile.

“If we don’t intervene in what we see, then it will become a bigger problem,” she said.

Herrmann said she would participate in the media fast again, and a lot of church attendees have emailed her, saying they have more time available.

“The general consensus is that it raised people’s awareness of how much time they were spending with their family in the same room but not really spending time with them,” Herrmann said.

Now that the church’s media fast has ended, Herrmann said she has plugged back into technology, but not as much as before. She said she will be more conscious of time spent online, “but time will tell how long lasting that is before people fall back into old habits.”